


His Key to the Locks

by finnandfluke



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky doesn't kill people, Childhood Dreams, Gen, I'm pretending Civil War is a myth, Overprotective Bucky, Tony gets hurt tho, he saves them instead, medic!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 19:37:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6297478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnandfluke/pseuds/finnandfluke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fighting in another war is not high on Bucky's list of priorities, so he finds a different way to watch Steve's back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Key to the Locks

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by marty-mc's adorable artwork: http://marty-mc.tumblr.com/post/82450304984/hey-stop-crying-ill-take-care-of-you-stevie
> 
> Title comes from 'Given to Fly' by Pearl Jam, which never ceases to remind me of Bucky Barnes.

 

Barnes has a tendency to worry, and the Avengers have to find this out the hard way. Well, hard for Steve, seeing as Bucky’s towing him out of the elevator by the collar and into the kitchen area, shoving him in the direction of a stool as he grabs a few towels. There’s a first aid kit unpacked on the island, along with a few less-than-medical-grade implements that, frankly, Tony didn’t want to know about. Bucky was distractedly fussing over every scrape he saw on Cap, and demanding that Steve strip down so he could throw on some bandages.

“It’s cute,” said Barton. And he held onto that belief for a number of missions after, fully dismissing his friends’ worries until _he_ was the one stuck with Barnes while Rogers was in the field.

When the Avengers return from that mission they’re met by an exhausted, frazzled, caffeine-saturated Barton who heartily agrees with their plan of springing Bucky Barnes from captivity. Unfortunately no one can actually agree on what that plan should be. Some consider having him stow away in the quinjet, while others think that it would be easier to have Thor fly him wherever they’d be headed; Tony wonders if he could hide him in a spare Iron Man suit.

In the end it’s Bucky who figures out how to lift his probation. It would have taken too long for Bucky to be cleared for field combat, and he accepts this, but Steve had other people to watch his back in the field. What Steve really needs is someone to stitch him back together at the end of it (and to rip him a new one if he tries anything excessively stupid). And for Bucky, it comes down to the fact that Steve is out there, and he is not. So he asks a favor of his doctors- and that rankles, it really does, but he sucks it up because _this is for Steve_.

Hell, when he asked he wasn’t even sure that he wanted to be back in the action; he’d caused enough death, both in the war and after it, and the weight of any more lives on his conscience made him ill. But Steve’s life had always been in Bucky’s hands in one way or another, and he’d be damned if he let the punk down now. If Steve could be idiot enough to let his shield fall into the Potomac, then Bucky could be stupid enough to follow that boy from Brooklyn back into the fight.

Two weeks after the request his doctors are marveling at his aptitude. He undergoes intensive training with Sam, because there are some skills that only experience can teach, and suddenly Sam starts to see the man that Captain America was willing to die for. Bucky doesn’t train with the wings though - he’s already got enough metal strapped onto his body.  In a matter of two months it becomes clear that Bucky’s medical training far surpasses the standard requirements for combat medics.  Before the third month was over his shrink clears him to be Steve Roger’s personal paramedic.

And at first the Avengers are fine having him just take care of Steve, hauling the punk’s ass out of trouble and bandaging it all up afterwards (which happens a LOT).  They’re secretly relieved that they no longer have to watch out for Rogers pulling some dumb shit and getting himself mortally wounded - partially because Bucky’s there in an instant to fix him up, but mostly because Barnes’ real skill is emotional manipulation (”I did NOT survive seventy years of HYDRA torture to watch you throw yourself off a bridge! Next time you almost die I’ll kill you myself, Stevie, I swear to God!”).  Plus, it’s made amply clear that Barnes will break protocol and go into the field any time Steve takes unnecessary risks. Steve refuses to be the reason that Bucky’s clearance is revoked, and suddenly the number of injuries he sustains are cut in half. So it all seems to be going along pretty smoothly.

Then Tony gets shot.

Normally that’s not a big deal, what with the suit and all, but something’s gone wrong and Tony’s on the ground before the shot stops echoing through the forest.  No one’s close enough to check his vitals, and Tony can’t find the breath to answer Natasha when she asks for his status.

The pain in Tony’s left leg is just ridiculous - he’s Iron Man, why the hell is he suddenly in pain? He’s goddamned Tony Stark and he’s a fucking genius and here he is laying on the ground, staring up at the trees and… oh god… that wasn’t just a bullet was it…

Before Tony can go into a spiral of panic Barnes is there, opening Tony’s mask before shoving two pills in his mouth.

“Painkillers, swallow ‘em” Bucky barks, seeing the offended look on Tony’s face. Then Bucky’s at his leg, assessing damage with a laser focus before calling for an extraction. Whatever ETA he’s given is too long, because he swears violently before throwing his pack on the ground next to him.

“Stark,” he growls, “You wanna know, or do you trust me to fix it?”  He’s already pulling out what he needs, not that Tony can quite see what that is…

“Uhh… both?” Tony hears his voice shake, but he can’t quite be damned cause his leg was hurting but now he _can’t feel it, oh god, that’s really bad, isn’t it, why can’t I feel my leg-_

“Armour piercing round,” Bucky’s saying, prying apart the suit’s metal plates, and that part makes sense to Tony.  That’s reasonable, explains a few things, makes logical sense.  The rest of what Bucky’s saying, though, that’s the part Tony can’t quite wrap his head around. “It’s a through’n’through, but it mangled the suit’s leg.  You’ve got shrapnel embedded in the muscle, and something nicked the femoral artery.  I’m gonna find that piece o’ shit, pull it out, and patch up the artery so you’re stable enough for the extraction.”

Whatever Bucky says resists any attempt of Tony’s brain to process it.  So he moves on, because he can just deal with that shit later.

“So, Buck Rogers, how did you get so good at not killing people?” Tony winces at the screech of metal as Bucky tares at his suit with metal fingers.

“Shut up Tony,” comes the flippant response, “I’m saving your life.”

“Wow, you should really work on your bedside manner,” replies Tony, and he hates how hysterical his voice sounds to his ears. 

“You know how I was trained to take people apart?”

“Yeah,” Tony snarks feebly, “one of the few files I actually read.”

Bucky takes a moment to glance at Tony’s face, registering its paleness and the sheen of sweat, the shaking breaths that the man is desperately pulling into his lungs.  Shock, probably, mixed with blood loss - if he can keep Tony talking then the man might not pass out.

“Well, it’s like that, but in reverse.”

Tony’s laugh is more than a bit hysterical, but it’s there. “That… th-that is so fucked up Barnes.”

“Yeah, but it works,” he shoots back. “‘sides, I been keepin’ Stevie alive for eighty years.  An’ I’m not talkin’ about Captain America, I mean that ninety pound asthmatic who was allergic to the world and always threw the first punch.”

“So h-he’s always… b-been like that?” Tony can’t quite catch his breath, but no way is he passing out when Bucky’s serving up dirt on the golden boy.

“Hell yeah,” Bucky shakes his head, actually smiling before he does something to Tony’s leg that _fucking HURTS! Oh, thank fuck, he can feel it, thank FUCK!_ “I’ve been pulling that punk outta trouble since he was half that size.  Sarah, Stevie’s ma, she was a nurse. Used to teach me how t’ fix him up, deal with cuts an’ broken fingers an’ other small stuff.”

“S-so what… you ju-just extrapolated f-from there?”

Bucky goes silent as he checks his quick patch job, avoiding the question by unfolding a pressure bandage and sliping it around Tony’s thigh. 

“Wanted t’ be a doctor,” he says quietly.  “Wanted t’ take care of Steve, keep him healthy through the winters. Never had the money for school, though…”  he ties off the bandage, loosening the tourniquet he’d applied earlier.  He can hear the quinjet touching down in the clearing behind them, the heavy steps of Coulson’s extraction team as they run forward with the stretcher. “Taught myself as much as I could from books, but then there was a war on, an’ well…” Bucky grabs Tony’s shoulders and heaves him onto the bed, taking up a position next to Tony’s head as they haul ass back to the jet.  “I guess you’d know the rest,” he drawls with a cocky grin, “ _IF_ you read my file.”

Tony just rolls his eyes, watching Bucky give a clipped report to the other medics as he refills his emergency pack.

“Hey, Bucky,” Tony rasps, fighting off fatigue as someone hooks him up to an IV, “You and Rogers… are y-you… y’ know…” He makes a vague hand gesture, pleasantly surprised that he can move the limb.

Bucky snorted. “Of course we are, Tony.  Since ‘37.”  He strode past the gurney and out of the jet, throwing back a sarcastic “Once he’s stable check his eyes, I think he might be blind.”

Tony tries to feel indignant, but he’s fucking tired.  Besides, he’s just won the longest-running bet in team history. He chuckles as the anesthetics start kicking in, lulling him into unconsciousness.

Meanwhile Bucky is back in the field, saving lives instead of taking them.


End file.
